WASHINGTON - Syndicated columnist Robert Novak has been issued a citation after hitting a pedestrian while driving in downtown Washington.

D.C. Fire Department spokesman Alan Etter said the victim was taken to George Washington University Hospital with minor injuries.

David Bono, a bicyclist who witnessed the incident, told The Associated Press that the pedestrian was hit in a crosswalk and was splayed across Novak's windshield.

Novak released a statement saying, "I didn't know I hit him. I really didn't have any idea it happened until they flagged me down and told me."

D.C. police said Novak was given a $50 citation for failing to yield the right of way.

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July 21, 2008

Recent Congressional Votes - Senate: Veto Override; Medicare Improvement for Patients and Providers Act Senate: U.S. Global Leadership Against HIV/AIDS, Tuberculosis, and Malaria Reauthorization Act House: Veto Override; Medicare Improvement for Patients and Providers Act House: Drill Responsibly in Leased Lands Act Upcoming Congressional Bills - Senate: Stop Excessive Energy Speculation Act Senate: American Housing Rescue and Foreclosure Prevention Act House: American Housing Rescue and Foreclosure Prevention Act House: The National Highway Bridge Reconstruction and Inspection Act House: U.S. Global Leadership Against HIV/AIDS, Tuberculosis, and Malaria Reauthorization Act

Recent Senate Votes

Veto Override; Medicare Improvement for Patients and Providers Act - Vote Passed (70-26, 4 Not Voting) The Senate overrode the President's veto of a bill that cancels a scheduled 10.6 percent cut in Medicare physician payments. Sen. Richard Lugar voted YES......send e-mail or see bio Sen. Evan Bayh voted YES......send e-mail or see bio U.S. Global Leadership Against HIV/AIDS, Tuberculosis, and Malaria Reauthorization Act - Vote Passed (80-16, 4 Not Voting) The Senate passed this bill to triple spending for President Bush's program to treat and prevent AIDS, malaria and tuberculosis in foreign countries. Sen. Richard Lugar voted YES......send e-mail or see bio Sen. Evan Bayh voted YES......send e-mail or see bio

Recent House Votes

Veto Override; Medicare Improvement for Patients and Providers Act - Vote Passed (383-41, 11 Not Voting) The House overrode the President's veto of a bill that cancels a scheduled 10.6 percent cut in Medicare physician payments. Rep. Peter Visclosky voted YES......send e-mail or see bio Drill Responsibly in Leased Lands Act - Vote Failed (244-173, 18 Not Voting) The House failed to attain the necessary two-thirds margin needed to pass this bill that would have required energy companies to drill for oil and gas in areas where licenses have already been acquired. Rep. Peter Visclosky voted YES......send e-mail or see bio

Upcoming Votes

Stop Excessive Energy Speculation Act - S.3268 The Senate is scheduled to vote on this bill intended to prevent price speculation in the oil markets. American Housing Rescue and Foreclosure Prevention Act - H.R.3221 The Senate is expected to vote on this housing-recovery package after it passes the House. American Housing Rescue and Foreclosure Prevention Act - H.R.3221 The House will vote this week on this housing-recovery bill. The National Highway Bridge Reconstruction and Inspection Act - H.R.3999 The House is scheduled to vote on this bill to improve highway bridge safety. U.S. Global Leadership Against HIV/AIDS, Tuberculosis, and Malaria Reauthorization Act - H.R.5501 This bill funds programs in foreign countries that combat HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis, and malaria.

Pickens Reinvents Himself With Alternative-Energy Campaign

By Steven Mufson

Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, July 22, 2008; Page D01

T. Boone Pickens has played a lot of odd roles over the years.

There was the geologist who made most of his early money by snapping up the stock of big, undervalued oil and gas companies, a practice known as "drilling on Wall Street." The wealthy corporate raider who said he was defending the rights of ordinary shareholders. And, recently, the influential TV commentator on oil prices who places enormous and mostly lucrative bets on where those prices are going.

But perhaps the strangest role the 80-year-old, Oklahoma-born Pickens has fashioned for himself is his current one: the billionaire speculator as energy wise man, an oil-and-gas magnate as champion of wind power, and a lifetime Republican who has become a fellow traveler among environmentally minded Democrats -- even though he helped finance the "Swift boat" ads that savaged the campaign of the 2004 Democratic presidential nominee, Sen. John F. Kerry (Mass.)

Senate Majority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.), a vociferous critic of speculators, who he says are inflating the price of oil, last week called Pickens "my political friend." The Sierra Club's executive director recently flew in Pickens's private plane. And House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (Calif.) invited him to speak to the Democratic caucus tonight.

Pickens has lubricated his latest transformation with a $58 million ad campaign to rally support for building enough wind turbines to provide 20 percent of America's energy. He says that would free up enough natural gas to replace most of the oil imports that Pickens says will otherwise "break" the U.S. economy, while endangering national security.

Pickens said he launched his campaign, known as "the Pickens plan," because "this is the last chance for me. I'm 80, and I have the money to do this." He said: "It's not anything for Boone Pickens to make money. I got plenty of money." Besides, he said, his estate will go to charity. Instead, he said, he wants to "elevate the debate" because the presidential candidates "do not have much of an energy plan for the short term, and the short term has to be addressed."

In the ads, Pickens says: "I've been an oilman my whole life, but this is one emergency we can't drill our way out of. And I have a plan. In the coming weeks, I'm going to share the details of that plan to use American technology and alternative energy to slash our dependency and break foreign oil's stranglehold on us."

This isn't the ad campaign some GOP operatives wanted Pickens to underwrite. Republicans were counting on him to play a central role in the presidential campaign, hoping he would pour millions of dollars into ads attacking Democratic candidate Sen. Barack Obama (Ill.).

Instead, as Pickens recalled, he was sitting in a Dallas conference room in May with other wealthy Republicans discussing plans for financing an ad campaign to support Arizona Sen. John McCain's bid for president, when it hit him -- ending the nation's dependence on foreign oil was more important than who reaches the White House in 2008.

Now that he is running a different kind of ad campaign, he has received some kind words from Democrats. "He's making us think different about an energy policy that's been stuck in neutral for seven years," said House Democratic Caucus Chairman Rahm Emanuel (Ill.), who is introducing a bill with tax credits for natural gas fuel pumps and cars.

On Sunday's "Meet the Press," Al Gore drew some distinctions between his plan and Pickens's vision for U.S. energy but added: "I don't see him as a competitor on this. There are really a lot of common features in what he's saying."

McCain, by contrast, made a slightly sulky reference to the oil magnate while talking about the importance of renewable energy during a town-hall meeting last week in Warren, Mich. "I'm glad Mr. Pickens is spending some of his money to advertise and have his face on television here," McCain said. "Good."

Pickens wouldn't be Pickens if he didn't have some money at stake. He has plans for a $10 billion, 4,000-megawatt wind farm that would be the world's biggest. He has contracted to buy $2 billion in wind turbines from General Electric. Acquaintances disagree about whether it's a case of Pickens putting his money where his mouth is or putting his mouth where his money is.

He said he will go ahead with or without government help, but the government could certainly help. If Congress extends the production tax credit for wind, that would be worth hundreds of millions or more to his project over a period of years. Pickens also said he is planning to buy right of way for a 250-mile power line to carry half of the wind farm's power to the Texas electricity grid. There, it would meet a new line financed by Texas. He would still need an interstate line to carry the rest of the wind farm's power to other markets.

In addition, Pickens has long advocated natural gas vehicles. He invested in a company that went public as Clean Energy, a firm that provides the fuel for natural-gas-fired vehicle fleets. There are only 142,000 natural-gas-fueled vehicles in the United States.

Instead, he said, this is about the nation's interest. "If $7 trillion go out of this country in 10 years, you can quit talking about health care," he said. "You're going to be broke."

Staff writer Juliet Eilperin contributed to this report.

By Spencer S. Hsu

Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, July 22, 2008; Page A02

Nearly three years after Hurricane Katrina revealed the nation's inability to house large numbers of evacuees, the Bush administration proposed a new disaster housing strategy yesterday that includes a mix of solutions tried after the storm, while leaving major blanks to be filled by the next president.

Under the draft plan, the federal government would rely again on rental vouchers, mobile homes and travel trailers in the worst emergencies. The strategy calls for states to take on greater responsibilities, while leaving it to an as-yet unnamed government-wide housing task force to tackle the hardest problems.

"We know enough to say we can't make a single plan that works across the nation," Harvey E. Johnson Jr., deputy administrator of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, said in releasing the 87-page strategy for a two-month comment period. "It's a strategy, not an operating manual, not a how-to manual."

W. Craig Fugate, emergency manager for the state of Florida, where disaster housing is a familiar issue because of its vulnerability to hurricanes, said in a withering but typical critique, "Having to survive the disaster and then the FEMA Housing Plan may be too much to ask."

The report leaves to be developed seven annexes to address questions that Congress gave FEMA until July 2007 to answer. They include how to house disaster victims near their jobs, manage large evacuee camps, care for disabled and poor people, and repair rental housing quickly, as well as whether new laws are needed. Congress set the deadline in October 2006.

The strategy suggests that the Department of Housing and Urban Development needs new laws and funding to take the lead in providing long-term disaster housing, which the White House recommended in February 2006. However, it is unclear if the administration will propose such a package before President Bush leaves office in January, Johnson said.

The document "sadly demonstrates that [FEMA] has not learned enough from . . . history, and may be doomed to repeat it," said Sen. Mary A. Landrieu (D-La.), who heads a Senate Homeland Security subcommittee reviewing federal disaster recovery efforts.

The document underscores what current and former homeland security officials have long emphasized: that the magnitude of challenges raised by a long-term evacuation caused by a massive hurricane, earthquake or nuclear or radiological attack leaves few options.

Katrina, which hit in August 2005, displaced 770,000 people, including 500,000 for more than four months. The federal response "foundered due to inadequate planning and poor coordination," the White House later reported.

Besides wasting upward of $1 billion on unused housing units, FEMA has faced an ongoing problem of formaldehyde contamination of trailers. U.S. public health authorities recommended all trailer occupants be moved this winter after finding high levels of the toxic industrial chemical, and FEMA leaders pledged not to use trailers again.

However, the draft strategy proposes using trailers in extraordinary circumstances when no alternatives are available, for no longer than six months' use. They would be located only on private property, not group sites. They would be used only at the request of a governor, with the approval of FEMA's administrator, after states have set their own formaldehyde limit, Johnson said.

Maliki's Embrace of Withdrawal Timeline Confounds McCain

By Dan Balz

Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, July 22, 2008; Page A06

But the curious turn of events made for an unexpected opening act for the Democrat's week-long tour of seven countries, demonstrating anew the combination of agility and good fortune that has marked his campaign.

Whether Obama can count on Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki in the days ahead is another matter. The Iraqi government does not speak with one voice on this matter, and it is not yet clear how current negotiations with the administration will conclude and how much emphasis will be placed on making a withdrawal timetable or "time horizon" conditions-based.

Beyond that, Obama's opposition to the troop "surge" that has helped quell violence and U.S. casualties -- and that McCain vociferously supported -- leaves plenty of room for further questions about his judgment at that moment. McCain's advisers were quick to suggest Monday that it was only because of the success of the increase that Obama can project the drawdown of troops over a 16-month period.

But as political theater, the events of the past few days have played unfailingly in the Democrat's favor. On Friday, a day after Obama left for Afghanistan and Iraq, Bush administration officials announced that the United States and Iraq had agreed on a time horizon for removing troops. Then, twice in three days, Maliki embraced a withdrawal timeline similar to Obama's. Beyond that, McCain shifted ground to declare that he, too, favors sending more U.S. troops to Afghanistan.

McCain, campaigning in Maine, was blistering in his criticism of Obama on Monday. He said his rival has been "completely wrong" on Iraq and "has no military experience whatsoever," and argued again that any withdrawal from Iraq must be based on conditions on the ground.

The Republican's campaign advisers noted that he has also embraced a withdrawal timetable for Iraq. In a recent speech, he said his goal would be to remove all U.S. combat forces by the end of his first term as president. But McCain said that could happen only if Iraq is secure and stable. Obama, he said, has gotten it backward -- calling for a timetable first and foremost, with no real regard for conditions on the ground.

"You've got a situation where Senator Obama has been incessantly criticizing the Iraqi government for 18 months," said Randy Scheunemann, McCain's senior foreign policy adviser. "Now here's something he thinks can work to his political advantage and so he's embracing it, while at the same time rejecting the considered military judgment of those who made the successes of the surge possible, like Gen. [David H.] Petraeus and Gen. [Raymond T.] Odierno."

The Iraqi prime minister's commentary about timetables was rolled out first through an interview in the German magazine Der Spiegel in which he explicitly mentioned Obama's 16-month timetable and gave it a favorable review. Later, after urgent inquiries from officials at the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad seeking clarification, a spokesman said that Maliki had been misinterpreted. But he did not specifically explain what was misstated.

Then on Monday, after Maliki met with Obama, his spokesman, Ali al-Dabbagh, said the Iraqis were working toward a deadline that would call for U.S. combat forces to be out of Iraq by the end of 2010, at most eight months after Obama's timetable. He also said the timetable was not discussed when Maliki met with Obama and Sens. Chuck Hagel (R-Neb.) and Jack Reed (D-R.I.), who are accompanying the senator from Illinois.

Asked whether the administration would prefer that the Iraqis not talk about specific dates, she replied, "We don't think that talking about specific negotiating tactics or your negotiating position in the press is the best way to negotiate a deal. However, we understand that they're a sovereign country and they'll be able to do that. We're just not going to do it on our end."

If there was a strategic goal for Obama's trip to Afghanistan and Iraq, it was to broaden the debate from focusing largely on his proposal to withdraw combat forces from Iraq over a 16-month period to the question of whether the conflict in Iraq has sapped the United States' ability to combat the Taliban and al-Qaeda in Afghanistan.

As Obama prepared for his trip, almost all the focus was on his troop withdrawal plan for Iraq -- and there was considerable criticism that his firm deadline ignored any consideration of conditions on the ground.

Over the weekend, Adm. Michael Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, also raised questions about setting such a timetable, calling it "very dangerous" to establish a deadline of about two years from now for withdrawing troops.

Against this criticism, Obama appeared determined not just to defend his timetable, but also to shift the focus of the debate. He used his speech to link the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and to argue that the conflict in Iraq continues to deplete the U.S. military's capacity to wage what he called the more important war, in Afghanistan.

McCain and Obama agree that more troops are needed in Afghanistan, but they remain far apart on how the war in Iraq fits into this equation, just as they remain at odds over the terms of ending U.S. involvement in Iraq. That debate will continue to play out between now and November with more turbulence ahead, resulting from the twists and turns of the past three days.